A Once-Peaceful Nation

Drift - Rachel Maddow

On Mother's Day 2012, my friend Karen gave me this book.  As she handed it to me, she reminded me that the present-day Mother's Day in the U.S. was initiated by Julia Ward Howe, who, after the Civil War's terrible carnage, wanted to unite mothers to protest the senselessness of their sons' deaths. She wanted to celebrate peace.

Karen has since passed away, having retained her rebelliousness until her battle against cancer ended.  I can't help but wonder what she'd think of our country standing again, today, on the brink of another war in the Middle East.

This is a book every U.S. citizen should read.   When I originally wrote this blog, House Republicans had just passed a bill that would replace $55 billion in defense cuts with reductions in spending on food stamps, Medicaid, and financial regulation.  Recently, the Senate approved a bill authorizing targeted attacks on ISIS.  The more things change. . .

Maddow opens the book with a long quote from James Madison's "Political Observations" dated April 20, 1795.  In part, it reads:  "War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.  In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. . . and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people.  The same malignant aspect of republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war. . . No nation could reserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . .These truths are well established.  They are read in every page which records the progression from a less arbitrary to a more arbitrary government, or the transition from a popular government to an aristocracy or a monarchy."  This could have been written today.

Maddow then walks us through the expansion of and changes in the military since our country began.  Our very wise forefathers, leery of the consolidation of power, restricted standing armies (and they were leery even of those) to times of peace.  Can you imagine?  Can you imagine Jefferson and Madison's reaction to the state of the DOD today?  Debating $55 billion in cuts, let alone allowing the growth to occur in the first place?  Can you imagine our founding fathers approving of secret drone strikes or the privatization of the armed forces?  The abuses that have occurred and are growing need to be stopped.  First step:  awareness of these issues.

On Bill Maher the week I wrote this original post, Dan Rather talked about the trivialization of the news, how things have changed with the consolidation of the media into the hands of a few.  Power corrupts.  Isn't it time we stopped talking about who sleeps with who, whether or not it's OK to eat meat, whether we're damned if we don't attend church, and focus on what's happening in our government, our country?

Unlike many political books that illustrate a downhill slide without providing answers, Maddow ends with 3 pages of solutions.  Solutions begin with awareness.  Your awareness will be raised when you read this book and pass it on to your friends.  Then we can work together, all of us, to get our country back to the original ideals Jefferson, Madison and our other visionaries had in mind when the U.S. began.